Abstract
With the era of fully automated vehicles (AVs) quickly approaching, ridesharing services could have an important role in increasing vehicle occupancy, reducing vehicle miles traveled, and improving traffic conditions. However, the extent to which these potentials can be achieved depends on consumers’ disposition to sharing rides. From a travel behavior perspective, two essential elements to the adoption of shared rides are individuals’ acceptance of increased travel times associated with pick-up/drop-off of other passengers and their approval of strangers sharing the same vehicle. The current study develops the notion of willingness to share (WTS), which represents the money value attributed by an individual to traveling alone compared to riding with strangers, to investigate the adoption of shared rides. Using a multivariate integrated choice and latent variable approach, we examine current choices and future intentions regarding the use of shared rides and estimate individuals’ WTS as well as their values of travel time for two distinct trip purposes. Results show that users are less sensitive to the presence of strangers when in a commute trip compared to a leisure-activity trip. We also observe that the travel time added to the trip to serve other passengers may be a greater barrier to the use of shared services compared to the presence of a stranger. However, the potential to use travel time productively may help overcome this barrier especially for high-income individuals.
Published Version
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call